Chapter 6 - The Last Bottle
By morning, there were photographers outside Sophie’s apartment.
Not many.
Four.
It felt like forty.
The story had spread from a gossip account to several local sites, then to financial reporters interested in the possibility that Moretti Hospitality had sold counterfeit luxury wine.
Sophie’s name remained attached to almost every version.
WAITRESS TURNED CONSULTANT.
MYSTERY WOMAN.
MORETTI’S SECRET SOMMELIER.
Some headlines implied she had exposed the scheme.
Others implied she caused it.
None knew enough to justify either conclusion.
The photograph of her mother’s building had been removed quickly, but the fact that it had appeared at all changed everything.
Alessandro relocated Sophie’s mother and Jamie to a hotel owned by a separate company where security could be controlled.
Sophie argued.
Then stopped arguing when her mother saw the photographers.
That was the moment fear became anger.
Not for herself.
For her family.
At nine that morning, Sophie walked into Alessandro’s penthouse office wearing the same black jacket she had worn the night before.
She had not slept.
Neither had he.
“I want this finished.”
Alessandro looked up from the table covered in documents.
“So do I.”
“No. I mean publicly.”
He studied her.
“What are you proposing?”
“The charity auction tomorrow.”
His face hardened.
“Cancelled.”
“No.”
“Sophie.”
“That auction is where Victor planned to move the final bottles.”
“We believe that.”
“Then let it happen.”
“No.”
“We control the cellar now. We control inventory. Police know.”
“That does not make it safe.”
“It makes it safer than waiting for whoever is behind Victor to disappear.”
Alessandro stood.
“You are not bait.”
“I didn’t say I was.”
“That is exactly what you are suggesting.”
Sophie walked toward the table.
“You said someone is using your family’s past to hide in your company.”
“Yes.”
“They leaked my name because they want everyone looking at me instead of the transactions.”
“Yes.”
“So we stop reacting.”
“How?”
“Give them what they expect.”
He stared.
“A public wine auction. The same buyers. The same bottles. The same venue.”
“They know we’re investigating.”
“Some do.”
Sophie picked up the counterfeit inventory list.
“But whoever built this scheme still has one problem.”
“What?”
“The genuine Mouton.”
He looked at her.
The bottle recovered from Victor.
The one Alessandro had originally wanted on the night they met.
It had become the center of the entire investigation.
Provenance records suggested it belonged to a private collector whose cellar had been liquidated after his death.
But Sophie had found a discrepancy.
“The serial marking on the auction record doesn’t match the bottle.”
Alessandro frowned.
“You didn’t mention that.”
“I noticed it this morning.”
“You’ve been awake since this morning?”
“I’ve been awake since France.”
He did not smile.
Sophie opened a scanned certificate.
“The bottle Victor carried is genuine. But it isn’t the bottle listed on the shipment.”
“So there are two.”
“At least.”
“One real, one fake?”
“That’s what I thought.”
She turned the page.
“But what if there are two genuine bottles?”
Alessandro followed her reasoning.
“One stolen.”
“Yes.”
“From whom?”
Sophie tapped the original collector’s name.
“Arthur Vale.”
Alessandro’s face changed.
“You know him?” Sophie asked.
“Knew.”
“Who was he?”
“My father’s accountant.”
Silence.
The room suddenly felt smaller.
Sophie stared at the document.
“Your father’s accountant collected Bordeaux?”
“He collected everything he believed would hold value.”
“Did he leave records?”
“No official ones.”
“What happened to him?”
“Died six years ago.”
“Family?”
“One daughter.”
“Where?”
Alessandro reached for his phone.
Within twenty minutes, they had an answer.
Arthur Vale’s daughter lived in Connecticut.
Within an hour, she was on a video call.
Her name was Rebecca Vale.
She remembered the bottle.
More than that, she remembered why her father had bought it.
“It wasn’t about wine,” Rebecca said.
On the screen, she held an old photograph.
Arthur Vale stood beside Alessandro’s father at a table crowded with businessmen.
A bottle of Mouton Rothschild sat between them.
“My father used bottles as markers,” Rebecca continued. “He was paranoid about keeping written records.”
Alessandro’s expression sharpened.
“What kind of markers?”
“Transactions. Agreements. Dates.”
Sophie leaned toward the screen.
“Are you saying the labels contained information?”
“No. The bottles did.”
Rebecca disappeared from view for a moment, then returned holding an old notebook.
“He kept cellar codes. I thought it was obsessive collector stuff.”
She read several entries.
Vintage.
Producer.
Storage position.
Initials.
Alessandro went pale.
Sophie noticed.
“What?”
He did not answer.
Rebecca continued.
“The Mouton 1982 had the initials R.M.”
Alessandro stood very still.
Sophie looked at him.
“Who is R.M.?”
“My uncle.”
That was the first time Sophie heard the name Rafael Moretti.
Alessandro explained after the call ended.
His father’s younger brother had once been part of the family business.
Then, fifteen years earlier, Rafael disappeared from public view after a dispute.
Some said he moved overseas.
Some said worse.
Alessandro had not seen him since he was nineteen.
“You think he’s behind this?”
“I think he has a reason to hate my family.”
“That’s not evidence.”
“No.”
“What was the dispute?”
Alessandro looked toward Manhattan beyond the glass.
“My father forced him out.”
“Why?”
“Rafael was reckless.”
“More reckless than organized crime?”
“Considerably.”
Sophie absorbed that.
“What did he want?”
“Control.”
“And your father kept it.”
“Yes.”
“Then your father died.”
“Yes.”
“And you inherited the legitimate businesses.”
“And other things.”
Sophie looked at him.
“But Rafael got nothing.”
“No.”
The scheme suddenly made sense.
Not completely.
Enough.
This was not about stolen wine.
It was about destroying Alessandro’s credibility through the cleanest part of his empire.
If Moretti Hospitality became associated with fraud, banks would pull financing. Partners would disappear. Regulators would investigate. The legitimate business would weaken.
Then the old reputation would become the only one left.
“Rafael wants you pushed back into the world your father built,” Sophie said.
Alessandro looked at her.
“Maybe.”
“Why?”
“Because in that world, he knows how to fight me.”
“And in restaurants?”
“He doesn’t.”
Sophie smiled faintly.
“Then let’s beat him with a wine list.”
The auction proceeded the next evening.
Police and investigators operated discreetly.
Alessandro’s security doubled without becoming obvious.
Guests arrived in formal clothes beneath golden chandeliers, pretending the scandal had not made the event more interesting.
People always claimed to dislike drama while moving closer to it.
Sophie stood near the display cellar.
No apron.
No uniform.
A microphone waited near the auction podium.
Alessandro approached.
“You can still leave.”
“You’ve said that twelve times.”
“Thirteen.”
“You counted?”
“Yes.”
She looked at him.
“Nervous?”
“No.”
“Liar.”
“For you.”
The honesty silenced her.
She touched his sleeve.
“I’m not alone in a cellar this time.”
“No.”
“And there are approximately sixty cameras here.”
“Fifty-eight.”
“Please stop counting frightening things.”
That almost earned a smile.
The auction began.
Several ordinary lots sold first.
Then the auctioneer introduced the Mouton Rothschild 1982.
Sophie watched the room.
One bidder raised a paddle immediately.
Number 47.
She recognized him from photographs investigators had shown her.
A shell buyer connected to Victor.
The price climbed.
Five thousand.
Eight.
Twelve.
Twenty.
Number 47 continued.
Then another bidder entered.
Number 19.
Sophie looked toward Alessandro.
He saw it too.
Number 19 was Camila.
Her face remained calm.
Sophie’s stomach tightened.
“What is she doing?” she whispered.
“I don’t know.”
The bidding reached thirty-two thousand.
Camila raised again.
Number 47 countered.
Forty.
Camila lifted her paddle.
Forty-five thousand dollars.
The room murmured.
Number 47 stopped.
“Sold.”
The auctioneer’s hammer fell.
Camila had purchased the bottle.
After the applause, Sophie approached her.
“What are you doing?”
Camila looked at the stage.
“Fixing one thing.”
“By spending forty-five thousand dollars?”
“My father taught me never to apologize cheaply.”
Sophie stared.
Camila finally looked at her.
“I gave the investigators my records.”
“All of them?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I was vain, selfish, and careless.”
Her mouth tightened.
“But I am not a criminal.”
Sophie said nothing.
Camila continued.
“And because whoever leaked your mother’s address went further than anything I wanted.”
That mattered.
It did not erase what Camila had done.
But it mattered.
“Why buy the bottle?”
“Because Victor’s buyer was supposed to.”
“How do you know?”
“He contacted me this morning.”
Sophie’s pulse jumped.
“What?”
“He thought I was still angry enough at Alessandro to help.”
“You should have told us.”
“I told the detectives.”
Sophie looked toward the security staff.
So Alessandro knew.
Of course.
“What happens now?”
Camila gave a sad smile.
“We see who comes to collect it.”
It happened thirty minutes later.
A waiter Sophie did not recognize approached Camila and quietly offered to carry the bottle to secure storage.
Camila handed it over.
He walked toward the service corridor.
Then changed direction.
Sophie followed at a distance.
Alessandro followed Sophie.
The man entered a private exit.
Outside, a black sedan waited.
Police moved.
The driver attempted to pull away.
He got less than twenty feet.
Within minutes, everything was over.
No gunfire.
No dramatic chase.
Just doors opening, commands shouted, hands placed on the roof of a car.
The driver was not Rafael.
But the phone in his pocket contained messages.
Enough to locate him.
Enough to connect Victor.
Enough to connect the warehouses.
Enough to show that the counterfeit operation had been designed to implicate Moretti Hospitality.
By sunrise, Rafael Moretti was arrested at a private airfield in New Jersey.
The story broke before breakfast.
This time, Sophie’s name appeared differently.
CONSULTANT HELPS EXPOSE RARE WINE FRAUD.
She hated that headline too.
But slightly less.
Three days later, Alessandro asked her to meet him at Maison Aurelia.
Table twelve.
Of course.
Sophie arrived wearing jeans and a coat.
The restaurant was closed.
One small table lamp glowed between them.
On the table sat the heavy leather wine list.
Alessandro opened it to page fourteen.
Third line from the bottom.
She laughed.
“You kept the old list?”
“I thought it had historical value.”
“For what?”
“The evening someone told me not to waste twenty thousand dollars.”
“You were going to waste more.”
“I know.”
He looked at her.
“I have something for you.”
“If it’s another consulting contract, add vacation days.”
“It isn’t.”
He slid a document across the table.
Sophie read it.
Then read it again.
Director of Wine and Hospitality Development.
Maison Aurelia.
Full authority over acquisitions, training, cellar management, and future wine programs across the group.
The salary made her blink.
“You’re serious.”
“Yes.”
She put the document down.
“I need to ask you something.”
“Anything.”
“Would you offer me this if you weren’t attracted to me?”
The question did not embarrass him.
“Yes.”
“How do I know?”
“Because my attorneys drafted that offer the morning after you found the first counterfeit bottle.”
That stopped her.
“Before the cellar?”
“Before.”
“Before Camila confessed?”
“Yes.”
Sophie looked at the contract.
Then at him.
“And the other thing?”
“What other thing?”
She raised an eyebrow.
He smiled faintly.
“The attraction?”
“Yes.”
“That came before the contract.”
“How much before?”
“Page fourteen.”
She laughed.
Then the laughter faded.
“Alessandro, I cannot build my life around becoming the interesting woman a powerful man noticed.”
“I know.”
“I need my work to be mine.”
“I know.”
“And whatever happens between us can’t decide whether I keep it.”
“It won’t.”
“You say that now.”
“So put it in the contract.”
Sophie stared.
He pushed a pen toward her.
“Independent employment protections. Board review for termination. Your department budget cannot be altered by me alone.”
“You already thought about this.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you were right.”
“About?”
“If I want honest work from you, I need your trust.”
Sophie felt something inside her soften.
Not surrender.
Something better.
Choice.
She took the pen.
But did not sign yet.
“What about us?”
Alessandro leaned back.
“We have dinner.”
“A date?”
“If you want it to be.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then it’s dinner with my director of wine.”
“You’re making this difficult.”
“I learned from you.”
May you like
She smiled.
Then signed.
